


Reunion

by Watchword



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Never again, Unnecessarily Sad, bye, tcest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 06:13:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20577797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Watchword/pseuds/Watchword
Summary: Raphael abuses an odd outlet for grieving purposes.





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caroaimezoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caroaimezoe/gifts).

> Happy birthday, you beautiful bastard.
> 
> For everyone who is not Caro:  
I will never write another tcest fic; I did not edit this the way I should have; I made this unnecessarily dramatic. Rest in peace my soul.

Things don’t happen the way you think they should, sometimes.

The guys had come back for a sort of yearly meet. It happened at different times and different places and it wasn’t always annual. Don preferred the old lair, all the old infrastructure built up over decades to tweak and improve, not to mention all the ready access to tech and culture that only a city could provide. Mike preferred the farm, all its sun and slow seasonal progression, while vicariously living through Shadow and April. Leo did a lot of interstellar jaunting, and sometimes he stayed a year or two with either Don or Mike, depending on his preferences at the moment.

Raph wandered. He wandered so goddamn much.

This year was a lair visit, and Raph was sour starting off. He slid in around 11 pm. The sewer walls and the sewer stink coiled in around him and swallowed him up. The darkness in those closeted tunnels made him feel like he was tunneling through the guts of some dead giant. 

Fucking hated the sewers, man. Fucking hated them. Nobody should live there.

First person he saw was Mike. Guy was chattering in the main room, perched on a counter with Shadow slouched at his side. Raph stifled a feeling of revulsion. It shouldn’t be him sitting there. He’d fattened up over the years. April described him as “cuddly” and often recounted how much help he was around the house. It made Raph sick.

As for Shadow, the kid was taller than he was. Had she graduated yet? God, he didn’t fucking know. In his memory, she was only snapshots. A baby with a grumpy face, a fat-legged toddler, a whiny eight-year-old with a unicorn toy she refused to release because of some pseudo-religious affectation, a dramatic middle-schooler with spiked hair and arms covered in marker… and now she was tall and lanky, in neon-pink leggings and torn denim, and had a nose-ring and ear piercings. She looked like she could throw down with Casey. Hell, she even looked like Casey, somehow. Damn, that idea in particular really cut him. She had no right. She wasn’t even related to the man.

Raph hadn’t entered as silently as he should have. Mike whirled around and beamed. Shadow followed his gaze and sat up straight, half-waving, half-saluting. Raph suddenly wished he could disappear.

“Raph, man, what the hell!” Mike said. “You actually beat Leo this year! What’s up? Where’ve you been?”

“Out,” Raph said curtly. Then, when he realized how sharp it sounded, he said: “Down south.”

“Are you tired?” Shadow asked, hopping off of the counter. God, she even moved like Casey, somehow had his gait and the hard right angles of his cheekbones. 

Raph was tired, all right.

“Yeah, sorry,” Raph said. He straightened up, then began to unbutton his coat. His fingers felt clumsy. Just cold, he guessed.

“Aww,” Shadow said, grabbing him by the arm. “Sorry, Unca Raph. We already set up a bed for you.”

“In the dojo!” said Mike, a little too energetically. “We’re putting Leo there, too. Hope you don’t mind. Don took over both of your rooms.”

“He what?” Raph asked. “For what?”

“Cryptocurrency,” Don said. “For the servers.”

Raph pivoted, eyes flashing, chin lifted.

“You fucking what?” he asked.

“That’s not the way you talk to the family millionaire,” Don said lazily.

Don was just draped in front of the TV. There was a naked PC sitting beside it and a gaming controller sitting on a milk crate at his feet. He had a snakish, easy-going mien and cold, dark eyes. It was the look a cat might have for the mouse under its paw. Raph kinda hated him the older he got. He always seemed to know more and care less than he should.

“Christ!” Raph said. “I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed!”

“You haven’t been back in three years,” Don said.

Mike hissed between his teeth.

“Ooof,” he said. “Shadow, that’s our cue.” He jerked his chin toward the kitchen.

Shadow grimaced. “Yup.”

The two of them patted Raph on the shoulders and then waltzed off to god-knew-where. It occurred to Raph that Mike’s room probably lay untouched.

“Is this going to be a problem?” Don asked, sitting up.

Raph groaned and ran his hand down his face.

“No,” he grumbled at last. “But I’m not sticking around.”

“That’s too bad.” Don lifted himself to his feet and stretched one arm, then the other. He had aged oddly, Raph thought. Put on weight and muscle more in his upper body than in his lower half. Made him look weirdly stick-legged.

“You don’t sound too sorry,” Raph snapped.

Don shrugged. “You need a drink?”

“Yeah,” Raph said shortly.

“I’ve got some Scotch,” said Don.

“Anything’s fine.”

“I’m sure,” Don drawled.

One step forward, one step back. Every time he thought he could learn to like him.

One visit to the kitchen later, Raph took the offered glass, the little ice cubes, the quarter-cup. And then he slumped on the couch beside Don and they put up with each other a while. Long sips, heat running down into their chests beside their hearts, staring forward at a pause screen and the brightly-colored arrow that bounced incessantly over “Continue.”

“What are you playing?” Raph asked at last. He had already finished his cup. Don filled it again without looking at it very long.

“Beta for a new MMO. Technically, I’m not supposed to tell you anything about it.” Don kicked back.

“Huh. It any good?”

Don shrugged. “Not very.”

Raph laughed once. “Is that what you’re telling them?”

“More or less, yes.”

“I’m guessing it’s more.”

Don’s grin cracked out one tooth at a time, hiding the darkness of his eyes.

“You know me,” he said.

Too well, Raph thought.

It was startling the first time he had realized he could go the rest of his life without knowing one of his brothers, but, well… there it was.

“When’s Leo supposed to show?” he asked. “And are we doing anything special this time?”

“Anytime now.”

“He’s gonna be angry about his room.”

“On the contrary. He gave me his blessing.”

Of course he had. He didn’t really hold onto mementos like Raph thought he would. And it figured that Don would ask Leo first. The two brains of the family tended to stick together pretty well. Raph bet that Leo didn’t hate anybody in the family. Maybe not even him. 

How’d it get this way, anyway? There’d always been friction, sure, but he’d thought it was normal for family members to get on each others’ nerves a little. What he hadn’t expected was this slow evaporation, this gentle drift. It was like being vivisected one tendon and one year at a time.

“You wanna get smashed?” he asked at last.

Don burst out laughing.

“No!” he said, and slapped Raph on the shoulder. “No, no, I don’t!”

Raph’s smile tightened.

You’re gonna die alone, he thought.

**

Supper was lasagna with salad, courtesy of Mike. April showed up with a bag of ice cream, a little rounder this year than the last. There was a splash of gray in her hair. Raph was actually happy to see her. She had never lost her light. She kissed him on the cheek and he suddenly thought: I should go live at the farm, too. She’d say yes.

“Where did you go off to, anyway?” she laughed over lasagna.

“Florida,” he said. “I hate winter.”

“That’s too bad!” she said. “We’d love to have you up at the farm sometime.”

He dropped his fork to the plate and twirled it in the pasta, tearing it open until the beef bled out.

“Are you sure?” he asked without looking up.

“Of course I’m sure!” she said. “I’m always worried about you out there.”

“Then okay,” he said, and shoveled a mass of sauce and cream cheese into his mouth.

Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened. “You… you will?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said between bites.

The entire table exploded. Raph paused in the middle of chewing, staring up from his plate with one bulging cheek. Shadow high-fived Mike and April clapped. Even Don laughed. Once.

“Oh my god!” Mike said, eyes glowing. “This is gonna be great. Which room do you want?”

“I don’t care. Put me in the barn.”

Shadow stood straight up, eyes sparkling. “You can have the room across from mine!” she said. “It’s huge! You can see the pond from there!”

“Okay,” said Raph. “Why… why are you all like this?”

“I’m just so excited,” Mike said. “I miss you a lot, man.” He reached across the table and patted his hand.

It seemed so wrong that everyone could love him and he couldn’t feel any of it. Raph sat back and watched them, then tried to smile for them. God, what a pathetic attempt it was. What was wrong with him?  
“Thanks,” he said at last. “I’m looking forward to it.” He sounded so fake. When had he last looked forward to something? Hell, when had he last been real?

“Hey,” Mike said, cocking his head. “We get it. It’s been hard for you.”

“And we’ve been worried about you,” April said, leaning toward him. “Please, Raph, let us help you.”

Raph wanted to say that they all seemed way too happy to understand. He didn’t. One of the things he’d learned after Casey went was how to shut the fuck up. For one thing, he knew, he absolutely knew that everyone had been crushed when Casey had… you know. What he hadn’t expected was the way life went on, the way nothing stopped. It was like carrying a wound that never healed, except nobody could see it but you. 

Jesus. One moment you had somebody who just got you, who thrilled to all the same things and laughed at all the same jokes and carried all the same history, and then the next minute you were cut off. Just like that. No warning, no preparation. It was like losing a limb. No, worse than that. Like losing part of your history, losing part of your memory. Losing part of your soul.

He dropped his eyes down to his plate and chewed without tasting.

“I’m gonna stay this time,” he said. “You have my word.”

**

Leo came in late. Raph smelled him before he saw him. He smelled like a forest. April and Shadow were sleeping in the living room, so they were up long enough to hug him and give him a run-down of the day’s events. Raph didn’t bother coming out of the dojo. Leo would be there soon enough.

Mike, April, and Shadow had clearly been there earlier to clean. It smelled like bleach and all the tatami mats had been thrown out. All that was left was the clean cement floor. Past that was Splinter’s old nook, still closed off with all his things left the same way they’d been the day he’d died. Raph hadn’t bothered checking up on it. This was one thing he knew Don would never touch, somehow.

April had bought him one of those nice aired up mattresses he liked. Leo’s was a pad on the floor. He had probably pointedly asked for it. Raph wasn’t sure if he just liked playing ascetic or if he just didn’t care. 

Raph sat on his mattress and waited, staring at the door.

There was the slam of a microwave. Some low murmuring. He guessed Leo was eating. Eventually there was a long silence.

Raph sat and thought nothing and stared. He didn’t feel like sleeping. There was a kind of low buzz in the back of his mind and a low buzz in all the cells of his body, like he was holding onto a reservoir of energy.

Leo always moved silently, so the first sign he was there was his silhouette. There was the silvery flash of his eyes, and then he stepped down into the dojo. His coat was thrown over his arm and he was wearing hakama and nothing else. Raph thought of Goldilocks when he thought of his brother: Don was too little, Mike was too much, and Leo was just right. He was toned and hardened from years of playing ronin. Probably out universe-hopping with Usagi. Probably doing more than that, too.

“Raph,” he said softly. “Good evening.”

Raphael shrugged. “You’re late.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I decided to stay with April,” he said. It came out without him really thinking about it. “Just fucking done with wandering.”

“Good!” Leo said. “They told me. I’m glad.”

He hadn’t moved from the door.

“So,” Raph said, “next year the reunion should probably be at the farm. Gonna give this family thing a try for once.”

“Getting too old for playing mercenary?” Leo asked.

Raph laughed. It was a bit sharp.

“I’m sorry,” Leo said, bending his head. “I know.”

Raph sighed, let out all of his frustration in that breath, and slumped over his knees. For the first time in a long time, the heaviness welled up in his chest and his eyes heated up and he knew he was going to let it out in the least pleasant way possible.

Next thing he knew, Leo settled beside him and threw an arm over his shoulder. They pressed together, forehead to forehead. Leo’s breath was hot on Raph’s mouth.

“It’s never going to be okay,” Raph said. He pressed his fingers to his eyes.

“I know,” Leo said. “I know.”

“How fucking dare… they act like… nothing ever happened,” Raph choked out. “How fucking… fuck… Jesus… fuck.”

“They suffer in their own ways. You know that.”

“They’re all so happy.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Why can’t I let this go?” Raph snapped.

“Why should you?” Leo asked.

Raph glanced up at his brother. The silvery eyes were fixed on his, unblinking.

“He was your best friend,” Leo said. “How could you ever forget this? How could this not hurt you more than everyone else? You don’t make friends like other people. Of course this hurts you most. It’s all right.”

They leaned together for a long, long time. Raph’s cheeks were wet. There was silence everywhere. One of the reasons he hated the lair was that silence. No wildlife, the unnatural insulation from the city, the isolated hums of the generator and the air conditioning.

Leo pressed his mouth against Raph’s temple. Raph took this as his invitation. He flipped his brother down on the mattress. It squeaked. Leo didn’t resist.

Leo looked up at him and said nothing as Raph ripped the hakama down to his knees and straddled him. Their tails rubbed against each other, the heat of their bodies mixing down between their thighs. They weren’t really prepared for a meeting like this. Raph knew it. He also knew they couldn’t make a lot of noise.

For a while they ground against one another, Raph pressing himself hard against his brother’s breast, cheek to cheek. He wanted to feel that heartbeat, goddammit. He wanted to feel the way that their tails curled and twisted and pressed against each other. He had fancied, the last few times they’d done this, that this was what it was like for old couples: a sort of silent understanding, very little speech, both knowing what the other liked and respecting it with a sort of longstanding unspoken agreement.

Leo sighed in his ear, hands cradling Raph’s hips, rubbing down between his thighs. His hands were rough with calluses. Raph’s cock slipped out first and Leo grabbed it. Raph hissed in his ear. A hard palm, a rough palm, a whole life in that hand. He knew how to stroke it, ease it out, stroke the tender head. The sensation was too much. Raph panted, thrust his hips down helplessly, thought he’d come that moment, all over Leo’s chest. And Leo wouldn’t judge him for it.

This, too, was mercy.

But Leo felt the rising tension almost before Raph did and slid his palm down and pinched him just right. Raph moaned between clenched teeth as the white-hot point at the base of his spine ebbed down, ebbed away.

As he throbbed hopelessly in Leo’s palm, Leo guided the head of his dick down, lifted himself up, and eased Raph between the swollen lips of his cloaca. Raph rammed in and it was Leo’s turn to hiss. Their bodies were absurdly built; once the cock was out, it was impossible for them to rut until it was stowed again. Someone always had to sacrifice something. And when they managed it, it was a gift. There was a delicious feeling of Leo’s swollen member, deep inside and still folded over, resting and twitching on top of Raph’s. Pressure that hugged him just right. A kind of love even in this.

After this, thought Raph, feeling somewhat guilty, Leo’s getting the best blowjob of his life.

They panted and bucked and rocked together. When Raph felt like he was going to cry out, he buried his face beside Leo’s and choked it back. Leo never cried at all, and he probably should have. There was no way this felt good without lube. Raph thought sometimes it was that ascetic in him. Taking on pain for other people. And he didn’t need to.

His cheeks were wet. Was he ugly crying? Jesus, he was a miserable bastard. Thank god it was Leo and not a strange whore or something.

Thank god in-fucking-deed.

Fuck, he thought. Why can’t I feel like this with anyone else? A whole universe of experiences and people and we’re aliens in it. Nobody else can feel like this. Why, Leo? Why’s it gotta be you? Why do you let me do this?

“Hey,” Leo panted in his ear. There was a laugh in his voice, a laugh that reverberated down to their union. “It’s all right.”

Raph grunted and came, thrust up against him until he was breathless, pumped everything into him, all the hate and all the anger and all the grief. Leo’s arm wrapped around the back of his neck, and it was his legs that held them up; he pressed their cheeks together as Raph came down, sagging in his embrace. For a few minutes, Raph lay listening to Leo’s rapid heartbeat, buried into him up to the hilt.

“I told you,” Leo whispered in his ear. “You’re all right.”

“Why are you like this?” Raph hissed back. 

“Like what?” Leo said, voice breathless.

“You’re too good for me.”

“Mm-hmm.” Leo slapped him on the back of the head. 

Leo’s cock was hard; Raph could feel it thrusting down against his own softening member. Still hazy, cloudy, Raph slid out; he missed that heat and strength immediately. Leo’s cock followed, twitching, wet. Raph didn’t wait. Ungainly, still half-dazed, he slid back down between Leo’s legs, pushing his knees apart. Leo pushed himself further up on the mattress, up on his elbows. He was breathing hard, and his fingers were hooked into the blanket.

“Shower?” he asked.

But Raph tugged on Leo’s cock until it darkened, hardened in his hand, and Leo slumped back, bit his bottom lip, began breathing in the same controlled way he did during katas. Raph massaged the tail, licked lightly around the heavy, flared head. Leo panted and his toes curled, and Raph twitched down at the base of his own tail.

Sometimes Raph wondered how much Leo knew about shit like this and how he stacked up against other lovers. Because surely Leo had other lovers. But Leo never talked about it and Raph never asked. And then Raph always had to go that extra step and consider himself a “lover.” And that was fucking bizarre, even though it was true. He wondered sometimes: if he found a girlfriend (and it was always a girlfriend he envisioned), would he return to Leo this way?

He wasn’t sure.

That meant something, he guessed.

He lapped at the twitching head, mouthed it a moment, savored the heft and size, stroked up the wet shaft and down again. He tasted himself, tasted Leo, tasted blood, salt, and sweat. He felt no shame, really. He thought he should. He’d joked plenty with Case in the past about fags or whatever, mostly asides about the assholes they’d beaten into the pavement. Somehow this was an entirely separate act to him. It shouldn’t be. He’d consider all the weight of these contradictions at some other time, probably.

He curled his tongue around the head, one hand supporting his brother’s shaft, the other playing down at the base of his tail, stroking at the swollen lips of his cloaca. Leo bucked, but said nothing. His breath was ragged.

So Raph swallowed. The first time he’d tried this, he’d thrown up all over Leo’s lap. Leo had helped him clean up. There’d been some research later, on his own time in other places. He didn’t trust Don not to know every little thing they searched for on the lair WiFi.

He started slowly, but soon had built up a rhythm, back and forth. With one hand, he rubbed the gaping lips; with another, he stroked the inside of Leo’s thigh. Sometimes he backed off just enough to take a breath and listen to Leo panting on the mattress. The sheen of sweat, the smell of him; it was almost too much. He was working himself up again; his tail twitched. But he fell back to the rhythm again without complaint, gazing up his brother’s plated breast, at the way he panted and licked his lips and the way his Adam’s apple bobbed and his fingers clutched the sheets…

Leo was buried deeply in Raph’s throat when he came. His whole body shuddered, and Raph pulled away. Cum spattered against his chin, dribbled down his chest, bubbled on his lip. He sat there, breathing deeply, still holding Leo’s length with his right hand, his left hand resting on Leo’s leg.

For a few minutes, they were still, Leo panting and catching his breath, Raph still kneeling. His knees ached.

“Shower,” Raph said in a cracked voice.

**

They went to breakfast like normal people. As always, there never seemed to be any residual awkwardness between them, and Leo passed him the Froot Loops like nothing had ever happened. It was surreal. It was like the event was one that happened only in a dream. Raph often wondered if it was. This was a soothing thought.

There were all the customary reunion activities. Plenty of movies, video and board games, little family outings in long jackets and hats pulled down low. At night, Raph and Leo bid each other goodnight and that was it. Raph slept well for the first time in months. Later, it was a cracked cup of sake he shared with Leo, sitting silently in the kitchen.

The reunion ended after a week exactly, like it always did. Usually, Raph had been the first to leave; this time, it was Leo. He was the one who bowed his way out of breakfast, explained that he had a portal to catch. Raph felt a pang despite himself, looked away from Leo to Mike. Mike had little tears in his eyes, too.

“Aw, Leo!” he said. “I wish you could stay!”

“Yes!” Shadow had said. “There’s a room in the basement with your name on it!”

But Leo had laughed, waved them away, donned the old hakama, put on the old jacket. Then he gave everyone in the family a hug. Even Don, Raph thought with some dissatisfaction. Don even seemed to like it.  
But then Leo had turned to Raph and wrapped his arms around him. Raph closed his eyes and lost himself for a moment. God. Why’d he have to go, of all of them?

“Man,” Raph said. “It was nice seeing you again.”

“You’re telling me,” Leo said, and drew away. “All I can say is that I’m so glad you’re staying at the farm. Let yourself go a little, won’t you?”

Raph laughed. So did everyone else, for some reason. It was so honest a sentiment; there was no reason to think Leo meant hedonism.

“I mean it!” Leo said, slapping him on the shoulder. His grin was so earnest. “Get some sunshine! Eat too much! Punch a tree! And maybe someday I’ll stop playing mercenary myself and join you.”

Raph drew him back in another hug, this one harder.

“I’d like that,” he whispered. “I’d like that.”


End file.
